Saturday, May 13, 2006

Typewriters and Nostalgia

Darren Wershler-Henry on typewriters and nostalgia:

The effect of nostalgia on our perception of the past is considerable. It's like a thick smear of Vaseline on the lens of a movie camera, blurring our objectivity. From the far side of the millennial divide, a photo of a typewriter doesn't just show a machine but an icon of unalienated modernist writing. The typewriter has become a symbol of a non-existent sepia-toned era when people typed passionately late into the night under the flickering light of a single naked bulb, sleeves rolled up, suspenders hanging down, lighting each new cigarette off the smouldering butt of the last, occasionally taking a pull from the bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.

[...]

Here's an object lesson: walk down to the corner bookstore and see how many books — novels, memoirs, and anthologies alike — sport covers featuring grainy sepia-toned close-up photos of of typewriter keyboards. You'll be there a while, I guarantee it, because there are far too many examples to bother citing. The typewriter is the pre-eminent symbol for earnest, unalienated writing and one of the biggest visual clichés of our age.

About Me

My Book!

My second collection of short stories, All In Together Girls, is now available in Canada, the U.S., the UK, and most other places where English language books are sold. You can buy it at your local bookstore, or order it from online retailers such as McNally Robinson, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, Powell's, or The Book Depository. You can also borrow it from a number of public and university libraries in Canada and the U.S. Check with your local library to see if they have it, and please encourage them to buy it if they don't!